Building an Author Platform does take time and effort. The process is fluid and needs to be customized to your personal references.The basic blueprint for an Author Platform is: • A Central Location (your storefront and inventory, your resume and interview, or soapbox and speech) o A website or blog. • Social Interaction (your advertisement and enticement for people to visit your store, read your resume, listen to your speech, and through this they get to know about you and what you do.) o Blog comments on others’ blogs (with a link to your site). o Blog posts on your own site. o Engaging with others. o Guest blog posts on others’ blogs (with a link to your site). o Promotions and/or contests on your site. o Newsletters o Facebook o Google+ o LinkedIn o Klout o Pinterest o MySpace o YouTube o Scribd o StumbleUpon o Reddit o Delicious o Twitter o (There are many more, but you get the idea).

Now that you are reading the list for the third time and asking yourself, “Who has time for all that?” The answer is; no one. This is a partial list of the possibilities to consider for Social Interaction. Only choose and use what works for you. It is recommended that you pick five. I will get into how to time-manage all this a little later. At your Central Location, share worthwhile, exclusive, informative, ‘good deed’ content. Notify your social streams of your content directing all traffic to your Central Location. Target your audience. Interact and engage where your readers are. Build an audience of readers and fans. It is your audience that will be the basis and ground floor for your marketing plan. The number of LIKES you have is not what is important. The number of engaged readers and fans you have is what counts. An author needs to become proficient at ‘herding butterflies’. Use ‘Call to Action’ to facilitate the ‘herding’. Statements like: • Click the link to read more. • Follow me on Facebook and Pinterest. • Subscribe to this blog so you do not miss anything. • Join the email newsletter list.

It is not enough to just have your Facebook, Google+, etc., listed at your Central Location; you need to ‘Call to Action’ your visitors to engage. Work at engaging your readers and fans by conversing, asking questions, commenting, replying, talking; talk TO them and make them feel like you care and are personable and they will feel a connection that will be beneficial to you in the future.

Think about it for a moment. Companies do this all the time. They do it through; sign up for weekly coupons by email, sign up for promo notices by email, become a member of our email club, etc. The reason for this is simple; periodically they send you an email that brings their brand to your mind. It reminds you they exist and when the time comes that you are in need or want something they offer, their brand will be the first you think about because it has become the most familiar to your brain – thanks to the interaction you have had with them.

Questions that your Author Platform need to answer: • What do you write? • Why do you write? • Who are you professionally and personally (keep the personal information to a professional limit)? • Are you trustworthy (especially important for non-fiction writers)? • Are you good at what you do? • Are you knowledgeable? • Are you personable and likeable?

Author Platform content ratio:• Keep your advertising/Social Interaction content to a 90/10 ratio. o 90% comprises:  Personal interaction on a professional level.  Helpful advice.  Kudos, opinions.  Honest interaction.  Your site content.  Interesting articles you want to share.  (In other words, no mention that you have a book about to be released.)o 10% comprises: A bold statement about your book being released. A ‘Call to Action’ directing readers where they can purchase your book.  Self-promotion.  (Any more than 10% and it will begin to have the opposite effect. You will become a spammer that people will ignore.)

Time-managing your Author Platform is critical. An Author Platform can quickly become a time-suck. This is not a good thing to allow happening. After you set up your Central Location and have investigated and decided which of the advertising outlets (Social Interaction) you are going to use, build your editorial calendar.

This can be an electronic calendar on your computer or a pocket calendar you keep with you everywhere you go (mine is a pocket calendar that I always have with me). Decide how often you are going to post content to your Central Location; once a week, bi-weekly, twice a week, or every day.

Decide what works best for you and once you decide, stick with it. It is important to make sure the frequency is something you can actually accomplish. In your editorial calendar, write down the subject of your content on the day the content is to be released. For example: • 1st of every month – a small teaser excerpt from the writing done during the 30 days prior. • Every Tuesday – Tuesday Treats! A guest post or an author interview of a fellow writer. • 15th of every month - Video of you chatting with a few fans (Goggle+ hangouts are recordable and drop directly to your YouTube stream and can be uploaded to your Central Location.) • Every other Wednesday – Wonderful Wednesday – an article about a recently released book and the author (interview that author and ask for a backlink to your site from their site) • 3rd Friday – Answer three questions that were submitted by fans.

These are just examples of content; the reality is that the options are endless. The content will be different for each of you and needs to be cohesive with your genre. Someone who writes only historical romance is not going to have Sci-Fi content at the Central Location.

Now – to the nuts and bolts of time-managing your Author Platform. • Turn off notifications – they become a ‘Call to Action’ for you and that leads to a time-suck. • Set a time schedule: o Only check the sites where you need to interact (Facebook, Twitter, your Central Location) at certain time(s) of the day and keep it to 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc. (I only spend approximately 1 hour a day for all Social Interaction for my business and author sites combined). o Choose a day and time to sit down with your editorial calendar and write/compile the content for the upcoming week/two weeks/month (I spend about 1 hour a week doing this task). • Use a scheduling service to distribute your Social Interaction: o HootSuite o TweetDeck o Seesmic o SocialOomph o CoTweet o Ping.fmo TwitterFeedo SpredFast o Buffer o SocialFlow o There are many more. Find the one that you like best and does the best job for you.

Nearly all readers search the internet looking for information about an author they like or are considering purchasing one of their books. If their search brings back nothing, they are much less likely to purchase the book. If their search brings them to a wonderfully setup storefront that invites them in to an informative and pleasant place, they will feel like they have found a friend.

When an editor, agent, or publishing company receives a query or a submission from an author, the first thing they do is an internet search to see how well the author has set up their author platform. Those that do not have a decently established platform are automatically rejected. If the author does not have ‘market value’ then to those who want to make money from the venture deem the venture to be fruitless. (For the record, yes, we do a search on authors for all submission, but we do not base our accept or reject decision on the author’s platform. We base our decision on the quality of the submission coupled with the platform completeness.)

Put your submission into business terms. When you submit your manuscript, you are asking a company to believe that you WILL make them a profit. If you have not taken the time and care to properly prepare you ‘business end’ of your ‘product’, then why should they have faith that you and your ‘product’ will make them money?

That is the bottom line reason why a well-executed Author Platform is a need, not a want, and definitely not something that can be left undone.

Do an internet search of your favorite authors and take a look at how their Central Location is designed.

It may give you some ideas. Also, as a side note – Wikipedia is a source of validity. If you search for E.L. James, Stephen King, Danielle Steel you will find that they all have Wikipedia pages. Did you know that Wikipedia pages are user built? As an author, consider building your own. If you are not tech-savvy or are not comfortable doing so, but want one, consider hiring someone to build one for you.

For an example of a pleasant and inviting Central Location that is a nice example of an Author Platform, check out Dorien Grey’s Central Location. It can be found at www.doriengrey.com.